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The latest Sailor Moon musical, Le Mouvement Final, was presented in Japan from September 9th to October 1st. As with other recent musicals one performance was made available to stream to Japanese fans and Miss Dream, the fan subbing group, recorded the stream and has created an English subtitled version which they have made available for download. Fans can follow this link to download Sailor Moon Le Mouvement Final musical!

This latest musical is the last of the current wave, following the Stars story arc of the manga, which had been adapted as the Sailor Moon Sailor Stars season of the original anime. This covers the story of the Sailor Starlights, posing by day as the pop group the Three Lights, as they join the other Sailor Guardians to fight Sailor Galaxia and the Animamates. I haven’t watched the musical yet but once I do I’ll likely post something with my thoughts on it. For those who have watched it, what did you think?

Sadly this will be the last musical in this recent wave which started back in 2013 with La Reconquista and continued with five musicals starring all female casts. I would never assume this will be the last Sailor Moon musical ever as we’ve seen the musicals come back after an 8 year absence in the past, but the next one we will see will quite possibly be something quite different with a different cast and potentially be yet another retelling of the story.

Sailor Moon stamps are coming to Japan! 10 different stamps, featuring the Sailor Soldiers in manga designs by Naoko Takeuchi, will be released in Japan. These are 62 yen stamps, which is equivalent to 55 cents American, so this would be your standard stamp used for postage on an envelope. A special stamp set will be sold in Japan for 5,900 yen, nearly 10 times the cost of a all 10 stamps combined! Fans in Japan will be able to buy a collector’s stamp set from the post office and many fans worldwide will be able to do the same if they are part of the Official Sailor Moon Fan Club! The set is listed on the Tokyo Otaku Mode site for fans with a membership. This set sells for $63.99 US, which is a bit more than the exchange for 5,900 yen but somewhat comparable. Pre-orders are being taken now. The product will ship in March 2018.

The set includes more than just the 10 stamps! There is also a stamp holder, 8 premium post cards based on manga art and 24 deluxe postcards which are manga cover art for both the original and the most recent editions of the manga. A clear folder which is included in both the fan club and post office package is slightly different between the two. I believe it’s simply a different colour.

Do you plan on getting this set? Keep reading for individual images of the contents!

This is a review and discussion of Live Action Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Act 7, He Saw Me Transforming, and Act 8, Rei and Her Father. These episodes originally aired on TV in Japan on November 15th and 22nd respectively. The date on the amusement park tickets for Act 7 show November 15th, which again confirms that the events of the series are taking place in something that resembles real time. Both titles are objectively incorrect because the phrasing of “He Saw Me Transforming” suggests that Usagi had awareness of this fact, which she did not, and “Rei and Her Father” does not actually feature Rei’s father, though the story is influenced by his actions where most of the action and plot takes place.

Sailor Mercury fans won’t be seeing much of Ami in these episodes. The excuse? She’s “Looking for Sailor V”. It isn’t really clear how she’s doing this exactly. Internet research? Looking it up at the library? Listening to police frequencies on the radio? Sailor V isn’t hard to find! She’s around Sailor Moon all the time! Ami should just do some fighting if she wants to find her. Ami’s scenes in these two episodes are confined to scenes filmed either at Karaoke Crown or the school. These are probably scenes filmed along with other episodes. The actress doesn’t go to any of the location shoots used in these episodes.

Act 7 is all about someone finding out someone’s identity, but it isn’t who we think it is! In the set up for the episode we see a monster fight in which Sailor Moon sees Tuxedo Mask have his tuxedo jacket ripped in the shoulder. Usagi then, very observantly, noticed that Motoki has this exact jacket ripped in the exact same place! Usagi’s conclusion, which is not completely unreasonable, is that Motoki is actually Tuxedo Mask! This is humorous as, in the Sailor Moon anime, Usagi also believed at one point that Motoki might be Tuxedo Mask! She imagines this in anime episode 13, Girls Unite: The End of Jadeite, while looking at various constellations, including the Motoki constellation and the Tuxedo Mask constellation which I have honestly never seen but I guess they are visible from Tokyo?

It seems we didn’t even get Motoki’s name prior to this, as Usagi has to ask him what it is. She’s starting to think she’s in love with Tuxedo Mask, and so she makes an attempt to get closer to Motoki by buying him food for his turtle! Another fantastic observation on Usagi’s part as Motoki is absolutely obsessed with Kamekichi and offers her amusement park tickets on the spot to thank her for them! The twist? She must bring two other friends! Sounds like a plot device!

Usagi brings Makoto and Rei! Rei, naturally, is not happy to be there. Motoki brought along Mamoru and Takai, his fellow turtle lover who in contrast makes Motoki seem like a cool ladies man! Takai is like an unrealistic joke character out of a cartoon or the Big Bang Theory in that he gets hiccups when he’s around girls. If anime has taught me anything many boys and men are completely incapacitated around women leading to nosebleeds and all other sorts of reactions which people never have in the real world which I inhabit. The viewer, at this point, already knows that Mamoru is Tuxedo Mask. Motoki, it turns out, had Tuxedo Mask’s jacket so that his mother could fix it for Mamoru. Mamoru is an orphan as we later learn, with no mother to sew a busted tuxedo jacket. I wonder why he didn’t get Hina to do it? Another reason for which I believe some elements of this series were made up as they went along and not planned from the beginning!

When the gang needs to split up into couples they do so using rock paper scissors and we first have Makoto with Motoki, Takai with Rei and Mamoru with Usagi. Aside from Takai and Rei, the biggest mismatch in the history of television, these are all big couples of the series! This is the first hint at the Makoto/Motoki relationship and yes I am absolutely shipping these two! Makoto gets what all of this is about and offers to switch partners with Usagi so that she can be with Motoki. They go on a roller coaster ride and then ride some boats in a pond which reminds me of… Usagi and Umino’s date in anime episode 15, Usagi’s Panic: Rei’s First Date! When Motoki again expresses his love of turtles Usagi notes that the two of them are like the tortoise and the hare! These aren’t lovers but it’s a neat idea! Things aren’t going great for Usagi however as she doesn’t feel that something something she does when Tuxedo Mask is around. Very observant once again! Usagi is on a roll!

Usagi and Motoki enter a house of mirrors. Have you ever been in one of these? I’ve been in a few and they can be a bit confusing but not as bad as this episode makes us think! Motoki, hesitant to make any sort of physical contact, has Usagi hold the same handkerchief as him so that they don’t get lost which of course means he immediately lets go and they get separated. When Mamoru comes by to help Usagi he’s not having any of this handkerchief nonsense and grabs her hand assertively! Usagi senses the same thing she does when Tuxedo Mask is around, but isn’t able to put the whole puzzle together! For that we will need a Batman Returns type moment which is some time away. Since Motoki is claustrophobic, he needs to be rescued by Makoto, which is cute, but she immediately abandons him when the monster is about. It’s a bit ironic that Motoki, a turtle lover, is claustrophobic. If he was ever an actual turtle he’d probably be afraid to hide in his own shell!

When Usagi finally gets a call about a monster attack she thinks no one is around and transforms. Mamoru is able to see her in a mirror. This is not only not how house of mirrors’ work but it’s also not how mirrors work! The general rule, one way glass aside, is that if you can see a person, they can see you! It doesn’t matter how many mirrors you bounce your gaze off of. If you look at a person they can see that you’re looking at them! Since there’s no one way glass involved, as this is actually just an effect of a light room and a dark room on either side of a sheet of glass which is not the case here, there is really no plausible reason for which Usagi would not be able to see Mamoru but that he could still see her. Regardless, the plot requires Mamoru to learn of Usagi’s secret identity before Usagi learns his, and so that is how this magic house of mirrors works. Maybe Luna made it with her magic!

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Act 7

Zyuranger episode 5

All of the fighting goes down at this familiar looking stage. We have coloured benches around an outdoor stage with some unique windows and a mosaic. Though I did not make the connection when I first saw this episode I later noticed that this same location was used in a number of episodes of Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger, the Super Sentai show which was adapted as Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. This location appears in two episodes of the English Power Rangers show, which is where I first noticed it, but it also features more prominently in the equivalent Zyuranger episodes. The location is first featured in Zyuranger episode 5, Scary Riddles, in which the Zyurangers face off against the Sphynx. This was adapted as the 5th episode of Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, A Pressing Engagement. The location is again used in Zyuranger episode 16, The Great Sneeze Plot, which was adapted in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers as episode 11, No Clowning Around, in which the gang fight Pineoctopus, a pineapple octopus monster.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Act 7

Zyuranger episode 5

Zyuranger aired in 1992 while Sailor Moon aired in 2003 and we can see that this area has been cleaned up considerably. Back in 1992 there were broken windows, graffiti on the walls and the paint on the benches seems faded, though this last point may simply be differences in video quality. By 2003 there seems to be no graffiti, restored windows and freshly painted or perhaps simply cleaned benches. I wonder what it looks like today! I haven’t been able to tell specifically where around Tokyo this location is. A reverse image search said it was a “wall”. If any readers know more about this location I’d love to hear about it. The live action series has a lot in common with Super Sentai series, and this is just one of those similarity. We will see reused costumes and even footage directly lifted from this series in future episodes.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Act 7

Zyuranger episode 16

After the fight Sailor Moon uses her handkerchief, which she has shown to both Motoki and Mamoru, to bandage Tuxedo Mask’s injured hand. When he untransforms Mamoru, who has already seen Usagi transform into Sailor Moon, recognizes the handkerchief. This is an odd double reveal of her identity. If he hadn’t seen her in the house of mirrors, he would certainly have figured out her identity here! The handkerchief also appears in the manga as Usagi, dressed as a Princess, drops it in Act 4, Masquerade Dance Party. That one had her name on it though.

Sailor V tells Sailor Moon to stay away from Tuxedo Mask twice in this episode. After Sailor Moon ignores the first warning she later states that she can’t stay away from him for obvious reasons. Sailor V, who the audience is meant to believe is the Princess, says that destiny can not be avoided. The natural interpretation of this is that, like in the manga, the tragedy that is unavoidable is the murder suicide of Princess Serenity and Endymion. I believe this is what the line was meant to indicate when it was originally spoken, but the true meaning will turn out to be much more complicated as the series progresses. At the time that this series was airing there was a group of fans who, even though they were familiar with other continuities, were convinced at this point that Minako was the Princess. That somehow the live action series was totally mixing things up and that Sailor V would be Sailor Venus and she would be the Princess. I’m not going to say at this point that this isn’t true, because that’s what the show is trying to have us believe, but let us try to think about what Sailor V is saying here in the context of this. What tragedy is it that Sailor V, as the Princess, would be aware of which is not going to be avoided if Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask pursue a romantic relationship? If Sailor V is indeed the Princess, then this can not be the Serenity/Endymion murder suicide or anything related to the Princess at all. After all Sailor V is the Princess. If Princess Serenity and Prince Endymion were a thing in some past life, then Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask being in a relationship is great news! The tragic events of the past, which in this case would have taken place between Sailor V and Endymion, will not be repeating themselves! Well I’m just ranting. Maybe Minako really is the Princess! Let’s wait and see…

Act 8 is about Rei’s relationship with her father but it’s also about Nako Nako, Minako’s mascot! There is an absurd contest going on where people can cosplay as Nako Nako, a sort of flying blue horse, and compete in order to win a plush Nako Nako toy. A lot of effort goes into this which makes me wonder if this is perhaps some one of a kind plush not available at retail? The cost and effort put into any of these costumes is much more than I would have expected a plush toy to cost. So Usagi calls in her friends to help with her costume because she didn’t properly prepare for a test. Rei thinks helping her will make her weak while Makoto things helping her will make her stronger. This is sort of a proxy argument for both of them dealing with some other psychological baggage in their lives. Rei thinks she did well on her own and thinks it’s good for a person, but Makoto who was also on her own and wishes for more relationships in her life, believes that’s the way to go. They fight!

Rei is asked to join her father for a meal, a sort of formality they do once a month. She has this conversation on her magical clothes changing phone which makes me wonder… is she using this as a personal phone? Her father’s assistant, who she wants nothing to do with, has this number somehow? Is it listed? Maybe she took her personal phone’s sim card and put it in her magic phone? She doesn’t want to go with her father and is basically forced into doing it, which Makoto believes is a kidnapping! It turns out Rei’s father, the politician, is having an article written about the ideal parent and child relationship, which Rei is pissed about since he abandoned her when her mother died and he’s scared of her magic powers. I wonder how he’d react to her phone and newfound abilities? Some serious themes going on here in this children’s show!

Makoto to the rescue! She sees Rei being taken and literally runs after a speeding car all the way to a hotel. Impressive! When she learns this wasn’t really a kidnapping, though it sort of is, she’s all about being on team Rei and proceeds to be violent with people in order to protect her! You would think Makoto, who’s parents are both dead, would want Rei to have a good relationship with her still alive father but instead she basically says she doesn’t get family stuff because she doesn’t have one and supports Rei. They order room service, perhaps using their magic phones, and then Makoto puts on the room service lady’s clothes and escapes with Rei under the table. Did they like… beat up and strip the room service lady or did they have a nice heart to heart and maybe she had some daddy issues so she offered to trade clothes? Did they expose their identities by using their magic phones to change into her clothes? Where did Makoto’s uniform go? If she left it in the hotel room she’ll probably have trouble replacing it since it’s from her old school which she moved away from and isn’t enrolled in anymore. Also they somehow cut a perfectly circular hole in the room service cart so that we can do a gag where the little cover thing is lifted and Rei’s head is underneath. What sort of tool did they do this with? Oh… it was probably Luna!

Meanwhile Zoisite has a pretty decent plan. He can play music which plays through FM radio which can project someone to where a target is. Genius! He uses this on Jadeite to send him to where Sailor Moon is and it works! Does her identity get compromised? Well Usagi is actually wearing a kind of bad Nako Nako costume so I guess Jadeite can’t see through that? The contest is held at a hotel. Rei and Makoto are also at a hotel. Is the same hotel? That’s not really clear but they do get there pretty quickly and when things get serious with Jadeite he is snapped back to Zoisite’s room.

Zoisite tries his trick again to find Sailor V. He targets Sailor V who he thinks in the Princess. I wonder could he just have targeted the Princess instead? Who knows. The solution it seems is to turn off the FM radio. Great! Unfortunately Zoisite never tries this trick again, as it seems like it would be a fairly easy way to figure out one of the Sailor Guardians’ identities and then using that information kill all of them, assuming they could be caught off guard while they weren’t in super powered basketball mode or something.

After Minako gets attacked there’s a man in the car with her that asks her if everything’s okay! Who is this? Could it be Alan, her old love interest from her days as Sailor V in the anime as featured in episode 42? Could it be Kaitou Ace or one of her other half dozen first loves from the Codename: Sailor V manga? No. He’s is of no consequence and we never learn more about him. In fact she later has a flamboyant cartoon character manager who isn’t this guy at all. Abandoned character and plot line or bit actor who was never meant to be anything special? No idea.

Finally both Rei and Makoto enter the Nako Nako contest on Usagi’s behalf. They both have cute and out of character costumes and they both receive consolation prizes for their effort. The two have settled their differences and are now good friends! Rei’s relationship with her father however, is still terrible and that might be fine since he seems to be a bit of a jerk. I don’t think anyone in this show has a good father who is not dead.

Feel free to leave a comment with your own thoughts on these two episodes. If you’re looking to watch along with the series you can get English subtitled fan subbed versions from sites such as Miss Dream, TV-Nihon and Sea of Serenity. Fans looking to stream the show can do so from Dramanice and Kiss Asian.

This weekend is New York Comic Con and while some of you may be trying to figure out how many goats to sacrifice to get into the lottery to get one of the convention exclusive Sailor V Funko Pop! Vinyl figure we reported on earlier, the toy is available to order from the Hot Topic web site and as of the time I’m writing this it is “In Stock”. I’m really not sure what the term “Exclusive” means anymore. I mean it’s nice that more fans can get it I just didn’t expect this kind of thing to happen until after the convention. Notice that the Hot Topic product listing image has a “2017 Fall Convention Exclusive” sticker instead of the “New York Comic Con Exclusive” sticker we had previously seen from the Funko web site. Both stickers, however, have a Statue of Liberty image on them, which to me seems to be a symbol representing New York City…

As a Canadian I was briefly excited at the prospect of buying this figure, which is selling for a somewhat reasonable $15 US. Upon checkout when I was presented with a whopping $31 US shipping charge I promptly canceled my order. I frequently order items from Japan, quite literally on the other side of the planet, which arrive in a day or two for less than this ridiculous scam disguised as “shipping and handling”. How are they shipping this thing that could be so expensive? By personal courier riding a diamond eating unicorn? UPS? I’ll just stop now before I say what I’d like to say about this situation in words that I prefer not to use on this site.

This is a review and discussion of Live Action Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Act 5, Is Usagi a True Friend?, and Act 6, The Transfer Student is Sailor Jupiter. These episodes aired on TV in Japan on November 1st and 8th respectively and, as with earlier episodes, those dates seem to match dates in the show as a calendar in Usagi’s room shows that the month is November. For the first time we get a live action original story with Act 5 and Act 6. While Act 6 is somewhat close to the manga Act 5, is still its own original story. While it may have seemed at first like this would be an episode per episode adaptation for the manga, this is no longer the case and the series will continue to deviate from the source material as it goes on. Want a faithful adaptation? Watch Sailor Moon Crystal! This series is about to do its own thing!

Act 5 is all about Ami doubting her friendship with Usagi. There’s a monster in here somewhere, but that small aside is almost unnecessary to the story. This is a pure drama episode focusing on the friendship between Usagi and Ami. In earlier episodes it seemed as if things were going well for those two, but we are quickly learning that for Ami, making friends doesn’t come all that naturally. As she goes through her daily life she sees a number of examples telling her that many friendships are not as they appear, and so she begins to doubt the strength of her bond with Usagi. This goes so far as to having her imagine being shot by Usagi! Like mother, like daughter! Though my mind always goes to Chibiusa when I see Usagi with a gun, there is an early image of Usagi drawn by Naoko Takeuchi which similarly shows Sailor Moon wielding a gun. This was drawn before the concept of Sailor Moon was completely figured out.

Ami buys a book, “How To Be A True Friend” which gives advise that she doesn’t really follow all that well. This causes her to act atypical in a number of ways. She speaks to Usagi more casually, using the honorific “chan”, which was something Usagi had mentioned she wanted her to use. The “chan” honorific is used between friends while the “san” honorific is more formal. When other students boo the teacher because of a surprise test, she boos along! She even intentionally fails the test (or pretends to have failed the test) in order to help out with chores as punishment. She even skips her cram school in order to go to a pyjama party with Usagi and Naru. This is not the Ami we are used to, and it’s not one we will see for long!

This pyjama party is some weird stuff. It’s no one’s birthday, but it’s full of streamers! The girls sing karaoke and Ami claps along in a robot like motion and finally joins in. When it comes to trying on makeup however things are not as easy as screaming a catch phrase and transforming. Ami ends up looking like a clown causing Usagi and Naru to laugh, which Ami perceives as laughing at her. Distraught she tries to wash it off and collapses out of exhaustion. Usagi finds the book and is upset that Ami is trying to be someone she’s not. She tells her that lying is the one thing friends don’t do! Usagi, of course, is a good friend through all of this but Ami only sees evidence that their friendship is eroding as she basically is hearing her state ways in which they aren’t real friends. She doesn’t say “chan” and they lie to each other.

Meanwhile Rei, who herself has been shown to be very antisocial in past episodes, is very socially aware and the voice of reason. She tells Usagi not to push things and she’s totally right! What we have in Ami and Rei are a girl who doesn’t have friends because she’s bad at it and a girl who doesn’t have friends because she doesn’t want any!

There’s a whole glasses sub plot. Ami wears fake glasses, which is pretty odd. Do people really do this? I’ve recently started wearing real glasses and it’s a real pain to get used to. As I type this I’m distracted by the visible frames and twitching my nose, but Ami feels some sort of comfort from them. This makes me wonder… what if she really needed glasses? Ami wears glasses but Sailor Mercury doesn’t! Does transforming somehow heal all physical limitations? In the not at all canon Toon Makers’ Sailor Moon series which only ever had a pilot which never went to air, Sailor Mercury was in a wheel chair but when she transformed she still needed a special flying vehicle (which we can’t call a wheel chair because it doesn’t have wheels) to move around. Would a Sailor Guardian with glasses have something like Sailor Mercury’s visor? Regardless, they’re fake, and by the end of the episode Ami finds she isn’t wearing them anymore which is a sign of her gradual transition into the person she was pretending to be.

Ami also manages to call Usagi by her given name “Usagi” by the end, though there is no “chan” honorific included. This is an upgrade from the “Tsukino-san” she would usually say. Moreso Naru and Usagi’s other friends refer to Ami as the more informal “Ami-chan” instead of the formal “Mizuno-san” they had been using. This was a small change none of them had noticed, but indicative of an overall acceptance on their part that they were seeing Ami differently. The use of honorifics in this show and anime in general isn’t something that is always obvious to western viewers who don’t use such terms, but this episode in particular illustrates how different honorifics can be used even between classmates at the same level and that this can tell us something about their relationship. Throughout the series it is notable that Usagi very quickly uses the “chan” honorific when she first encounters the Sailor Guardians. This is an example of how easily she makes friends and is reflective of her genuine kind heart.

A bit of trivia. Early in the episode when Ami is listening to the radio she’s tuned to the FM frequency 77.7. This would refer to a 77.7 MHz carrier frequency. The problem? This is out of the normal range for FM radio which is in the range of 87.5 to 108 MHz. So what’s at 77.7 MHz? Pretty much nothing! A bit of reading at Wikipedia tells me that in the US and Canada radio controlled devices generally use between 72 and 76 MHz, putting this frequency between those that are commonly used. I don’t know why Ami isn’t just tuning in to everyone’s favourite radio station, FM no. 10!

Act 6 introduces us to Makoto Kino, Sailor Jupiter. She’s played by Mew Azama who I feel perfectly captures the character both in the way she looks and acts. The immediately evident thing about her is that she’s incredibly tall, and we’ll notice that whenever we see a group shot of the girls either posing in the show or in promotional material. Check out the new banner I’m using for the site and you’ll see that she’s leaning in and still taller than everyone else! This episode once again has a lot of drama and emotion and to me is one of the high points of the series. One might be inclined to say that, like with the episodes introducing the other characters, that this episode follows the manga Act 5, Makoto – Sailor Jupiter, but upon some reflection the only resemblance is the appearance of Makoto. While the Manga story centres around a wedding dress shop this episode is about basketball and no more resembles it in any way than the anime episode 25, Jupiter – the Powerful Girl in Love, with Crane Game Joe follows it. The anime, similarly, introduces Sailor Moon, Mercury and Mars in similar ways to the manga, but did not do the same for Sailor Jupiter or Venus.

Basketball is a major theme here and I wonder if anyone working on the show ever actually played the game. I’m no pro myself but at 6’2″ it was inevitable that I end up shooting a few hoops from time to time in my day, although a general lack of coordination and athleticism kept me from excelling at the sport. The superstar basketball player that all the girls show up to watch play is Takeru and this dude is not at all well equipped to play basketball! He’s wearing a really inappropriate hat and his scarf can’t possibly be doing him any good. Instead of basketball shoes he’s got these old and busted boots. Nice superstar! I wonder, do people really do this kind of thing in Japan? Just hang around a basketball court fawning over a run of the mill street player and taking photos? It reminds me a bit of episode 14 of the anime that centred around tennis where everyone turned out in droves to watch a player.

Usagi, creeping around the court to watch this Takeru guy, gets confronted and intimidated by a few jerks. Makoto shows up, protects her, and beats the crap out of them! How fantastic. Makoto is a transfer student from another school where, rumour has it, she got in a fight and so she got kicked out! As always Makoto is wearing the wrong school uniform and although it isn’t mentioned the idea is that she continues to wear this because she’s so tall and that her new school doesn’t have a uniform in her size. I don’t know how sizes work in Japan but as I understand it in North America women’s clothes sizes only affect width and for height you get petite, grande and venti clothes. I think that’s right…

Makoto has no friends, and so she hangs out on the roof at lunch time in the no friends club with Ami! As always though, Usagi is there to become her friend! This seems natural at this point as Makoto helped defend her. While walking on a bridge Usagi walks on a ledge to compensate for the fact that Makoto is so tall! Shopping montage! The two go shopping and try on various humorous clothes. The store they go to is Claire’s which is a chain which has locations here in Canada. A good place to buy gloves during prom season which work for Sailor Moon cosplay! Makoto is new to the area, having not only changed schools but also having moved in to a new place. She lives on her own since, as she states, her parents died when she was 10. These backstories keep getting more tragic! More important than that, as we eventually learn, is that she left because of her “Sempai”, a theme which is always around for Makoto. She compares various boys she finds attractive to her “Sempai”, a term which here means a student of a higher grade, something which in the English dub was a reference to her “old boyfriends” though in reality it does not seem like they ever dated. We see a number of people leaving Makoto at one point and it seems like one of them is likely her Sempai. There are two teenaged boys in the mix but I imagine the last one to leave, the well dressed one, is meant to be him.

When Makoto arrives home at her apartment one night she finds a love letter from Takeru inviting her to show up at a fountain at 10. Makoto arrives early in the morning, but hours and hours go by and no one shows up. This bears a striking similarity to episode 147 of Sailor Moon SuperS, Destined Partners? Makoto’s Innocence, in which Makoto waits for hours in the rain for Tiger’s Eye who has stood her up. Inspiration for this series from the anime is certainly possible, as that series had completed airing years before this series began production. In this story however, Takeru did not stand her up at all. The letter was a cruel prank by the three basketball jerks which causes great heartbreak to Makoto. Luckily Luna sees this and, somehow, is able to alert the girls via their cell phones. I expect she could communicate with them when in the headquarters but she’s clearly on the go when she sees this which makes me once again wonder if Luna’s powers have any limit!

This leads to a completely ridiculous and hilarious scene in which Usagi, Ami and Rei seek to take revenge on the basketball jerks by somehow using their phones to transform into basketball players? Does using a magic phone to make yourself wear basketball clothes make you better at basketball? This episode seems to suggest that yes it does, which makes us wonder why this isn’t used for actual saving the world purposes! So the girls show up looking all bad ass and totally cream these jerks at basketball using seemingly superhuman abilities to do things like jump super high. Justice?

Meanwhile through a conversation with Rei she mentions that she doesn’t like boys. Does this mean she likes girls? The interpretation from the manga would more mean that she’s not interested in boys, not that she’s interested in girls instead. In this way she’s quite unlike her boy crazy anime counterpart, though in other ways she is much like she was in the anime. In the manga it is mentioned by Rei and Minako that as Sailor Guardians their dedication to protecting the Princess precludes them from pursuing romantic relationships. Though this passage somewhat resembles the sentiment Rei mentions here, it can’t be said that it’s for the same reasons. Rei has only been a Sailor Guardian for a brief time, around a month by my estimate, and does not know who the Princess is or have full access to her memories of her previous life. It seems like this attitude about men is one she had before meeting Usagi. Further, without getting into specifics, the girls continue to pursue romantic relationships and it’s strongly indicated that far in the future at least one of the Sailor Guardians, besides the Princess, will herself be getting married.

Finally Takeru seemingly shows up at Makoto’s apartment but he’s actually possessed by a monster and he takes her to a dimension filled with candles. Makoto is so hardcore that she resists his charm and decks him. Woo! We get a real sad montage of everyone who’s left her, but Sailor Moon comes in to take Makoto’s hand, perfect symbolism of Usagi’s friendship which saves Makoto from a life of loneliness. Takeru, it turns out, is a bit of a wuss as he flees from the monster in terror while hardcore Makoto faces him. He’s quickly dispatched and the four Sailor Guardians are finally together as a team! Now there’s just that pesky business of finding the Princess…

We get a glimpse of Zoisite as the episode ends. Again, he looks very little like his manga and anime counterpart, except for the pony tail.

Feel free to leave a comment with your own thoughts on these two episodes. If you’re looking to watch along with the series you can get English subtitled fan subbed versions from sites such as Miss Dream, TV-Nihon and Sea of Serenity. Fans looking to stream the show can do so from Dramanice and Kiss Asian.

The Funko web site has revealed the 2nd wave of Sailor Moon themed Funko Pop! Vinyls which will be coming in November, just in time for Christmas! This wave includes Sailor Chibi Moon, Sailor Uranus, Sailor Neptune, Sailor Pluto, Sailor Saturn and Queen Beryl. Queen Beryl will be a Toys R Us exclusive. There will also be Pocket Pop! Keychains. Sailor Moon and Sailor Chibi Moon are the two keychains featured on the blog post, though there may be more.

Apparently Sailor Chibi Moon is the must have Vinyl since she’s the only new character who has a keychain shown and there’s a Barnes and Noble exclusive glitter version of her. Not really sure what the appeal of that is but if you must have every exclusive ever, you’ll probably want that! Barnes and Noble is an American book store chain. Not sure who, if anyone, will be distributing this exclusive in Canada.

Do you plan on getting these? I’ve made my thoughts on them clear before! I think they’re kind of ugly but I still have a couple of them. On a recent trip to Gamestop I saw a Bob Ross and Justin Bieber Funko Pop! Vinyl so I’m not sure what figure they could possibly make to surprise me anymore. If I live long enough I’m sure I’ll have a Funko Pop! Vinyl made out of me. There will be one created for every fictional or real living or dead being to ever remotely resemble a humanoid. Funko Pop! Vinyls will outnumber of us all until the universe is so packed with them that there isn’t room for anything else. We need not fear entropy. The end of time will occur when every particle in existence is part of a Funko Pop! Vinyl.

This is a review and discussion of Live Action Sailor Moon Act 3, The 3rd Senshi is Miko Rei, and Act 4, Sneaking into the Party! These episodes originally aired on TV in Japan October 18th and 25th 2003. Since Act 3 includes a date of October 22nd on a blackboard and Act 4 takes place at a Halloween party, it is safe to conclude that these episodes of the series were intended to take place roughly during the same dates in which they were aired. Assuming this trend was meant to continue we can estimate that roughly a year of time is elapsed over the course of the series.

Act 3 introduces us to the Miko, or Priestess, Rei Hino who becomes Sailor Mars. Once again this episode quite closely follows the equivalent manga story for Act 3, which has a plot by the Dark Kingdom around Hikawa Shrine causing the disappearance of girls, where Rei is suspected, and where ultimately she travels to a pocket dimension and transforms into Sailor Mars. Rei is played by the lovely Keiko Kitagawa. Though most of the actresses have had minor acting and modelling careers following the series Keiko Kitagawa has without a doubt had the most success. She is a very accomplished model and has acted in many movies and TV series in Japan.

The episode opens with a game show hosted by Luna. A lot of the sense of realism becomes a bit hard to grasp with some of the things which take place at Karaoke Crown. How does Luna, a cat with no opposable thumbs, do any of this? How did she create the forged year long passes that the girls use to freely come and go? How did she set up the headquarters? How does she set up things like gameshow buzzers on a whim? All magic, perhaps? There’s no evidence that she’s able to transform into a human to do this work… yet. Luna quizzes the girls and the answers we get are at best intentionally misleading and at worst, completely false. In an answer to the question of how many more Guardians there are, the correct answer is given to be 2. Let us ignore Sailors Uranus, Neptune, Pluto and Saturn as they do not appear in this series, but the answer is still incorrect. There are 4 Sailor Guardians who protect the Princess. Okay let us assume, for argument’s sake, that one of the remaining 3 Sailor Guardians is the Princess, meaning two more to protect her, but there’s still this pesky business of a 6th Sailor Guardian which appears in the later half of the series. Without getting into specifics, this is perhaps something Luna should have some knowledge about! Little things like this, and the general way the show plays out, lead me to believe that even with a relatively short run of the show, a lot of the plot points were not known ahead of time but instead were a bit made up as the show goes on. Minako in the opening, for example, is seen interacting with the others and wearing a school uniform that never appears in the series, but resembles what is seen in the manga and anime.

A bit of probably pointless trivia. This guy in Usagi’s class… doesn’t he look a bit like Umino? Perhaps it’s just a guy with glasses.

In class Usagi invites Ami to eat with her and her friends. She is at first excited but, upon seeing her friends looking at her oddly, declines the invitation stating that it would be too suspicious if all of a sudden they were friends. This seems to be a fabricated excuse on Ami’s part because of a potentially uncomfortable situation with Naru and Usagi’s other friends. Usagi and Ami bonded quickly before it was even known that she was Sailor Mercury, simply because they ran into each other on a bridge. They could have stated that, perhaps leaving out the part about the magical talking stuffed cat which can arrange game shows without thumbs, and it should be good enough!

Meanwhile Ami visits Usagi’s house, and their friendship appears to be developing, but we will eventually see that things aren’t all that easy. We learn in the process that Usagi’s mother is a bit nuts.

Enter Rei! She first bumps into Usagi on a bridge, leaving behind a bracelet which leads Usagi to try to track her down. With all of the disappearances and rumours about Hikawa Shrine, Usagi gets scared when she hears a couple of crows. These crows aren’t named however they could be Phobos and Deimos, Sailor Mars’s two pet crows.

Some girls show up at the shrine and bully Rei, taking her weird birdhouse looking thing and even pushing her to the ground. Usagi to the rescue! It doesn’t take much for her to befriend someone, and she immediately tries to be kind with Rei, again not knowing that she’s really a Sailor Guardian. It seems like the series constantly assures us that Usagi would get along with these girls if they didn’t have super powers, so that we don’t think they are just together for convenience.

In a classic Terminator move it looks like Rei is about to attack Usagi and Ami with a charm but it turns out she’s attacking a pack of leaves turned monster behind her. Kyle Reese does this to Sarah Connor in the first film. The Terminator does this to John Connor in the second. Usagi and Rei get whisked away to this pocket dimension type thing where everything has a blue haze to it. The fight goes on as expected with Rei becoming Sailor Mars and using Youma Taisan, which is an attack unique to the live action series similar to her Fire Soul from the anime and manga.

The fight is won and everyone starts leaving the blue pocket dimension thanks to Sailor Mercury. Sailor Moon gets cut off and … Tuxedo Mask… is in the blue dimension? Where did he come from? Jadeite mentioned 6 girls were kidnapped. Did he kidnap Tuxedo Mask as well? Did he sneak in at some point? It seems plausible that he snuck in through the portal as it was closing, but this isn’t clearly demonstrated.

The episode concludes when Usagi, happy to have her friends together, suggests a karaoke party. Rei says that she hates karaoke and doesn’t intent to join them! Big spooky music, this is clearly the conflict to be dealt with in Act 4…

Act 4 on its surface appears to be a story unique to the live action series, but it actually has some similarities to the manga Act 4, Masquerade – Dance Party. This is also somewhat similar to episode 22 of the original anime, Romance Under the Moon: Usagi’s First Kiss. In these there is a gem to be revealed at a masquerade party which invites the attention of the Sailor Guardians, Nephrite and Tuxedo Mask, who all fight to get the crystal. Here the masquerade is instead a Halloween themed disguise birthday party for a girl who is again revealing a gem with all parties interested in getting it.

This episode introduces us to a great relationship of the series, and that’s Queen Beryl and Jadeite! She point blank says to Jadeite that if he loves her, he should be of some use to her. It seems that Jadeite’s motivation is his love for Queen Beryl. This dedication, as we will see throughout the series, is beyond that of the other Shitennou. With that we are introduced to Nephrite, the second of the Shittennou, who looks nothing like his manga or anime counterparts! He has short red hair and a reddish uniform. While Jadeite looks much like other versions of Jadeite, we will see that this similarity is not there for the rest of our Dark Kingdom villains!

Another first of the series we see here is Rei and her skirt pants! Back in 2003 when this show was first airing I had never seen a person wear a skirt and pants at the same time. This was a fashion trend that eventually became somewhat common, but whether this was due to my ignorance of high fashion or not, this was the first time I saw it and I thought it was weird! I’ve since come to accept and appreciate Rei’s shirt pants and pretty much anything she wants to wear to be honest.

The tension with Rei continues. Not only does she not like karaoke but she doesn’t want to attend the party with Ami and Usagi. Ami confronts Rei alone about this and insightfully suggests that perhaps Rei is afraid of friends. This seems right on the mark as Rei says that friends and family eventually abandon a person, and we get some insight into her past that we will be seeing more of as the series goes on. By the end of the episode Rei warms up to Usagi and Ami a little, stating that even though she still hates karaoke, she would be okay with a get together if it didn’t involve karaoke. If only all social problems were this easily resolved!

In two cases in this episode Usagi does a terrible job of hiding her super powers. In the first case, while looking for fancy dresses for the party, Usagi uses her magical clothes changing phone in front of a crowded street full of traffic to change her outfit a number of times. In the second case, at the end of the episode, Ami calls out “Tsukino-san” to Sailor Moon in front of Tuxedo Mask. Sailor Moon responds by calling Sailor Mercury “Ami-chan” and Sailor Mars “Rei-chan”. Tuxedo Mask appears to be too dense to notice this, as the eventual revelation of Usagi’s identity much later in the series is a total surprise to him.

Ami shows up at the party wearing a ridiculous cute/sexy cat costume. Luna makes a comment asking how they could have known it was a Halloween party. This is ridiculous for a few reasons. For one, they clearly seem to know as Ami and Usagi both came with costumes. Sure they have those phones which can copy another person’s costume, but there do not appear to be any other sexy cat or ridiculous furry bear costumes present at Yuka’s party. The other reason should be obvious and that’s that it’s Halloween! During Act 3 we see a date of October 22nd on a blackboard. Act 4 aired on October 25th, within a week of Halloween. It stands to reason, based on this and the fact that this is a Halloween party, that it is in the whereabouts of Halloween at this point! Why, then, is a Halloween costume party so out of the question?

Back in 2002 I was invited to a Halloween party at a friend’s house. This friend had Halloween parties every year and they were always dress up parties. I made my own Jadeite costume for this party and, upon arriving, was informed by all my friends that it wasn’t a costume party! The correct question is not how one could have known it was a costume party, but how anyone in their right mind could expect that one wouldn’t think such a thing was a Halloween costume party! I spent the night ignoring my friends and talking with people at the party who I had never met. They, having no prior contact with me, did not have the social responsibility of explicitly informing me that this was not a costume party and so I was not upset at any of them.

Much like in the manga and anime versions of the episode, the guest of honour of the party, in this case Yuka, is possessed by a monster so that she can steal her own gem. The monster, in this case, is a ridiculous looking cactus. It splits into 3 pieces requiring precise timing of three attacks to defeat him. The trick? The three girls sing Minako’s hit song “C’est la vie” in unison. This was a trick used in the film Hudson Hawk by a bank robber played by Bruce Willis and his partner. They sang a song of a particular length to get the timing of their job just right, and like in Sailor Moon, the trick worked! As Rei sang along with “C’est la vie” all I could think was “Who hates karaoke now, Rei?”. This will not be the last time we hear Rei sing in this series!

With the fight completed Usagi leaps to catch the jewel, in doing so nearly falling off the ledge of the building. Tuxedo Mask grabs her and in doing so puts her in a much more favourable position that Sailor Moon and Ami were in Act 2. Tuxedo Mask, in this case, is fully stable on the roof. Although Sailor Moon told Ami not to give up when in a much worse position, she tells Tuxedo Mask it’s no use. Where did that optimism go? They both fall and Sailor Moon creates a magic bubble to float to the ground. In the manga and anime equivalent stories, the two fall off of a balcony and Usagi uses her disguise pen to create an umbrella which allows them to defy physics and float to safety. Since the disguise pen in this series is a cell phone app, things needed to be switched up a bit.

Feel free to leave a comment with your own thoughts on these two episodes. If you’re looking to watch along with the series you can get English subtitled fan subbed versions from sites such as Miss Dream, TV-Nihon and Sea of Serenity. What does everyone think of the new banner?

Japan is getting an official Sailor Moon store! The store will be opening in the Laforet Harajuku mall in Tokyo and will sell a lot of exclusive goods, some of which have already been announced on the official Sailor Moon Store site. You can also follow the Sailor Moon Store Twitter account for more photos of their merchandise. The opening is tomorrow, Saturday September 23rd, which means that it will be open in Japan by the end of today because of how time zones work.

Of the goods which have already been revealed we have bags, phone cases, key chains, tea and various other such knick knacks. These items seem to be reasonably priced. I find these kinds of products more appealing than the very expensive and limited selection we’ve gotten with the Sailor Moon Official Fan Club. More products will be shown on the Sailor Moon Store site and Twitter account as they are released.

I saw no statement that this was a limited time store so it may be intended as a somewhat permanent place, or at least remaining open from now until the store becomes unprofitable. If any of you are lucky enough to check out this store let us know what it’s like!

This is a review and discussion of the first two episodes of the Live Action Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon series. Act 1, I am Sailor Moon!*, and Act 2, Ami Became a Friend*, which originally aired in Japan October 4th and 11th 2003.

Act 1 mainly introduces us to Usagi, played in this series by actress Miyuu Sawai. Fans may notice the considerable similarities between this episode and the first episode of the original anime series and the first act of the manga. Don’t let that fool you! The first few episodes may go along closely with the manga, in a similar way to how Sailor Moon Crystal did it, but this doesn’t last terribly long as the series will go in its own direction soon enough. That said, this one is a lot like that first story. We have Usagi meeting Luna, getting her powers and thwarting a monster, controlled by Jadeite, which is attacking Naru’s mother at her place of business. Sound familiar? It should!

The episode starts out with Sailor V confronting Tuxedo Mask. Here’s one great change from the original anime in that we get to see Sailor V in action rather than just in a few posters and video games. As with other continuities Minako Aino is not yet Sailor Venus but instead fighting as Sailor V. We already get a look at the real life Minako though. She’s not an aspiring idol at all, she’s a full fledge pop star! She’s really hiding in plain sight with her career too. Her new hit song is “C’est la vie” (French for “That’s life”) which is a bit of a pun as it also sounds like “Sai-la V”, a close approximation to how a Japanese person would pronounce Sailor V. Further her new album is called Venus. She’s not even trying! This hit song is popular with Usagi. She plays it on her alarm clock to wake up and even performs it with her friend Naru at Karaoke Crown. That’s right! The Crown arcade has been updated to be a Karaoke parlour in this series! What a great opportunity to sell music along with the show!

On her way to school in the morning, late as usual, Usagi is confronted with a plush cat which falls from the sky. That’s right, Luna is a stuffed plush toy in this version! This seems a bit odd. A talking cat? Suspicious. A cat that moves around however is not that suspect. A plush on the other hand that does anything but be completely immobile is incredibly suspicious! Beyond this Luna the plush cat is CG in some scenes but a toy with swappable eyes in others! This is probably the cheapest part of the show. Easy to animate a real cat but having a realistic looking CG or even animatronic cat, like in Sabrina the Teenage Witch, would have been even harder to pull off! When Usagi runs into Luna, the talking plush, at home, she suspects she might be dreaming. I’ve often been unsure if I was dreaming or awake during a dream but I’ve never had this sensation while actually awake, but then I’ve never talked to a plush cat. Luna gives her a cell phone which looks identical to the toy. Using the camera Usagi can use it to change her clothes. Now that’s an app that would be popular with the kids!

Naru, as in the anime and manga equivalents, plays a prominent role in this story as the plot features around her mother’s Jewelery store. In this particular incarnation it’s not a sale but rather a fashion show that is taking place. Amongst the signs we see the name Mayumi Osaka, the name of Naru Osaka’s mother. This is the only version of Sailor Moon in which her mother has a family name! Naru’s mother is taken over by a monster in this version, not replaced as she usually is. When Naru confronts her mother she doesn’t recognize her daughter at all. How was her total lack of any memories of the woman she’s replacing not an issue before? Imagine being dropped in at your workplace with no memory of your job, you coworkers’ identity or even where you desk is! Naru calls her out on it and is immediately suspicious, which in itself is suspicious. This girl is ready for invasion of the body snatchers, shape shifters, robot doubles from the future or whatever problem it could be! Instead of assuming her mother is having some critical and medically concerning memory loss, it’s “Who are you?”. Wolfie’s fine Naru. Your step parents are dead. This borderline paranoid preparation however, does not stop her from being knocked unconscious. Poor Naru.

The fact that Naru’s mother was possessed rather than replaced however meant that the monster of the week couldn’t be straight up killed but needed to be healed. This means that Usagi couldn’t use Moon Frisbee now renamed Moon Tiara Boomerang as it would leave Naru orphaned, assuming she doesn’t have a father around because well dads in this show are mostly dead or not around themselves. Instead Usagi gets her Moon Stick right off the bat and uses Moon Healing Escalation to purify the monster and restore Naru’s mother. You’ll eventually see the pattern but the Moon Stick is also just like the toy.

And so the bad guy is beat and we are briefly introduced to Tuxedo Mask. This show is all about trying to confuse the audience on the expectation that they have no idea what Sailor Moon is about. When Luna tells Sailor Moon that she’s one of the four guardians of the princess we see Sailor Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and … Sailor V! Yes we see Sailor Venus and Sailor V next to each other. Perhaps they’re different people in this version? Many fans at the time of the series first airing were convinced that Sailor Venus was the Princess in this version.

Act 2 once again follows its equivalent manga counterpart quite closely. It’s all about Ami Mizuno, the genius from Usagi’s school, who attends a cram school which is targeted by a monster and eventually becomes the second guardian, Sailor Mercury. Still some of the details varie considerably as we’ll see. Ami Mizuno is played by Rika Izumi, but you wouldn’t have known it in 2003. The actress went by the name Chisaki Hama at the time, changing her professional given name to Rika and eventually using her birth name Rika Izumi in all aspects of her life. She is younger than the rest of the main cast and was only 14 in this and other early episodes of the series.

During the previous episode we got a look at Karaoke Crown and here we learn that it’s the new hideout! Always working at the front counter is Motoki who in this version is fanatical about turtles, including his pet Kamekichi which, at least during the day, is kept at his place of employment. Usagi has a special yearly pass which was forged by Luna who is “borrowing” a bit of Karaoke Crown’s space for a massive headquarters. Space in downtown Tokyo is at a premium so I imagine this headquarters is hurting the owner’s bottom line quite a bit! As long as Motoki can afford to feed his turtle I guess everything will turn out all right.

Luna suspects that Ami is a Sailor Guardian, and so she ambushes her on the bridge, leading Usagi, who has no idea what’s up, to start a conversation with her and immediately become friendly. Ami, as we’ve learned, has a lot of phonies trying to be her friend because she’s smart and because her mother is a doctor because I guess in Japan these are good reasons to want to be someone’s friend? My best friend in high school is smart and his father was a doctor but I we probably became friends because we both played a lot of Super Nintendo, which was important to me when I was 14. Usagi is delighted to hear that Ami is a fellow Sailor Guardian, but Ami is not happy to hear the news. She thinks Usagi is a poser who just wanted to be her friend so that they could save the world and stuff. This is nonsense of course, as Usagi had no idea about Ami’s Sailor Guardian status at the time. While Luna thinks it’s important to force Ami to be a Sailor Guardian, Usagi doesn’t want to force her to do anything. Here we see where Sailor Moon’s true strength comes from. It’s not about the power of her crystal or anything like that. It’s that she’s has a big heart and is a good caring friend. There’s a recurring theme about her befriending lonely girls who happen to be superheroes and this is the real difference she makes in their lives.

Fans of the various incarnations of the manga and anime will notice that there is no floppy disk or CD rom in this version. Instead there is a side plot where Ami borrows a MiniDisc of Minako’s new album from Usagi. What in the hell, you may be asking, is a MiniDisc? It was a format for recording and playing music which was fairly popular in Japan, a bit popular in Europe and not that well adopted here in North America. It stored music digitally, like a CD, so it had better sound quality than a cassette tape, but could easily be written and rewritten to which kept some of the convenience of an audio tape. Usagi’s copy of Venus by Minako Aino has a hand written label suggesting this is not a store bought album. Perhaps we should be referring to Usagi as Pretty Guardian Pirate Moon!

The enemy attacks the school where the next Sailor Guardian happens to be. Ami starts to fall off a ledge and Sailor Moon catches her. Now we have a fairly unfortunate situation where Sailor Moon is holding the ledge with one hand and Ami with the other. Have you ever done a pull up? That’s not that hard. How about a muscle up, which is when you pull yourself right over the pull up bar? Quite difficult. I’ve done very few in my life and it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Well if you’re hanging off a ledge and you want to pull yourself up without using your feet, you pretty much need to do that. Here Sailor Moon can only pull herself up with one arm and she is holding all of Ami’s weight with the other. Does Sailor Moon get super strong when she transforms? If not, there was really no way out of this situation. Some rare people can do a one armed muscle up but I don’t imagine anyone can do it with an extra hundred or so pounds of weight to drag. It reminds me of a similar scene in the film “This Is The End” which did not end well for the person hanging for their life. So Ami says she’ll transform to get out of it but Sailor Moon is convinced that they’ll figure something out. Maybe she could use her Moon Stick to create a bubble around them so that they slowly float to safety. Oh I’m getting ahead of myself…

This episode’s monster is a double monster! The main humanoid part is an actor in a suit while the dog part is CG. The humanoid part possesses the teacher but leaves her body at one point. This helps free up the monster to be killed by Sailor Moon and Sailor Mercury, who use a synchronized combination of Moon Twilight Flash and Mercury Aqua Mist. This is the first time Mercury Aqua Mist gets used. There is an unnamed move in the original manga which resembles this. It is first named here in the live action series and is later written in as Mercury Aqua Mist for new versions of the manga and this was adapted in Sailor Moon Crystal. Sailor Moon’s Moon Twilight Flash is done with her Moon Stick here. In the manga this was done using her tiara in Act 4.

The episode wraps up with a teaser for Act 3. We see Jadeite leave a gem at the Hiyakawa Shrine and get our first look at Rei Hino!

*A note on titles. The live action series had no titles included when it originally aired on TV. Episodes were simply titled Act 1, Act 2 and so forth. After the series aired in its entirety a Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Memorial Book was released in Japan which, among other things, included a list of titles for the episodes. I have this book but I can’t read any of it since it’s in Japanese and so I will be using this episode title list from Genvid. I would have been happy to just call the episodes by their Act number but it seems this relatively obscure list of titles is now commonly referenced when people discuss the show and so I am including them. Just keep in mind that back when the show first aired, no one knew anything of their titles beyond the number.

Feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts on these episodes. Looking to watch along with the series? Though there is no official international release of the live action Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon series you can get English subtitled fan subs from sites such as Miss Dream, TV-Nihon and Sea of Serenity.

Funko made a video showcasing their 80s and 90s themed Pop! Vinyls including Sailor V. Check it out below.

Funko Pop! Vinyls are an overly simple cheap and fairly ugly line of nearly identical looking figures covering pretty much every franchise to ever exist in the history of time. Their business model seems to be to make toys based on as many brands as possible and it’s going quite well for them. They can be found at pretty much every booth at every comic, anime, gaming or pop culture convention as well as on most of the shelf space at GameStop, a novelty toy store that used to sell video games. All said I sure would like to get my hands on one of these figures but unfortunately I have no plans to attend New York Comic Con. Will any of you be lucky enough to be attending?